“Yep,” answered Jan, with a look at Chick which was intended to mystify the girls.
“Maybe P’lina is the ghost, then,” Nell suggested, and Jannet thought to herself that it was not impossible.
“I’ll tell P’lina that I want to see if any of my mother’s boxes or trunks are up there, and perhaps she will give me the key!”
“You wouldn’t dare, Jannet!”
“Yes I would, Nell!”
“Much you would,” and Jan’s disbelieving eyes laughed into Jannet’s sparkling ones. “Wait till I come home again anyhow,” he added.
“Perhaps I will, Jan,” his cousin conceded.
The boys said goodnight, leaving the two girls in the quaint old kitchen, where they had made taffy in one of the old kettles, by the express permission of Mrs. Holt, and under her supervision, for Paulina had not wanted to have the “trouble and muss” of a fire here, among the cherished antiques of the kitchen. “Before the weather gets too hot,” meditatively said Jannet, taking a last piece of the sticky but very delicious sweet from one of the pans, “I’d like to have an old-fashioned taffy pull and invite some of the girls and boys that I met at your house, Nell. I’m afraid that Uncle Pieter and Old P’lina might not like it, but perhaps Cousin Di could get permission for me.”
“Perhaps so,” doubtfully answered Nell, “but remember that Chick and Jan leave to-morrow.”
“That’s so. Well, perhaps I’ll be here next winter. I’ve read about the good times in the country in the winter and I almost wish I needn’t go to school.”